Why is it that the organization that has in the past paid for all sorts of very expensive cathedrals suddenly gets to plead that they 'need' those taxpayer dollars to fund their school?
No. I'm not buying it. I want to see tax returns, I want to see priests in cheap robes, I want to see churches running bake sales to buy supplies. I'm sick of my government paying for things for wealthy organizations (not always religious ones, but some of the worst offenders are religious) that have more then enough money to pay for it themselves. This is even before we get to all the other issues involved with the RCC being allowed to run anything involving children; I don't care if it's over the internet I see no reason to allow these people access to minors. The RCC has plenty of money, if they want to run a @#%*ing school, they have the resources to do so without taxpayer assistance. And why is the same party that demanded more work for those on social assistance programs now giving away tax dollars to this welfare queen of a church anyway?!?!?!?
I guess we know the answer to that, don't we? I'm going to take my grumpy attitude about this elsewhere for a bit.
When I was a young teacher, we went on strike with a slogan read something like "Why does the Navy get a new frigate, while we have to hold a bake sale for sports equipment?" Didn't do much good. I think the government regarded as character building perhaps.
Republicans REJECT every social program that helps the American people including free lunches for destitute kids. But SOCIALISM for the wealthiest entity on the planet, the RCC, (and any other religious crap) coming from taxpayers pockets is ALWAYS acceptable. Meanwhile we cannot pay teachers a decent wage while those same poor teachers supply their students with supplies and lunches from their own pockets.
With multiple state-level investigations into the RCC's child rape addiction blowing up in the national news, Oklahoma decides 𝘯𝘰𝘸 is the moment to give that shitty old death cult another victim factory.
It'll be counted as a public school when it comes to it's child rape scandal. "See, it happens in public schools too, but people only talk about the RCC because they hate Catholics/God."
There was a time when the courts would have shot this down in a heartbeat, but that was before it was decided it was more important for Supreme Court Justices to grind their religious axes, than follow the Constitution. No religious school should get one cent of public money, for any reason!
I'm a retired public schoolteacher in Australia and they started this here in the mid 1960's. They did a 'close all catholic schools' stunt in one town, the local bishop telling all parents to take their kids to the nearest government school, which of course couldn't handle the additional numbers. They did this because there were fewer 'vocations', i.e. not as many young catholics were becoming brothers and nuns and the schools had to pay competitive salaries to secular staff.
Sadly, it worked and now government funding to private schools (no matter how wealthy) is accepted.
One conservative government argued that the schools will be able to keep the fees down, but they didn't. Instead they used the money to build massive halls, gymnasiums. swimming pools, etc.
When I see these buildings and materials compared to the government schools I still get very angry!
I urge my American friends to fight against this for all its worth!
I went to an Australian public (= US private) Anglican school. It was fine. The headmaster was a priest and we had the occasional religious assembly, but the school used real teachers, taught a rigorous curriculm, to the point where it was proud of how it's kids did on the HSCs (which are probably not called that any more...I'm probably dating myself...). The students came in all shapes and sizes and as far as I can tell the school took any student whose parents were willing to pay. We weren't Anglican, that's for sure. The facilities for disabled students were probably pretty primitive by today's standards, but this was decades ago and it was an honest attempt at accommodation.
Sadly, US religious voucher schools are not that. They are more typically attempts by fundie churches to *avoid* state curriculum and regulation than they are moderate church's attempt to *work with* the state.
About a mile from where I live there used to be a restaurant/bar/dance club called Georgie's Alibi. I don't remember if they did bingo, but they did have a weekly Drag Queen Trivia Night. It was extremely popular on the weekends, their patrons would take over about third of the parking lot of the businesses across the street.
I really want to know what part of "no public funds for religious schools" don't these people get. This shouldn't even be a discussion. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment makes this abundantly clear, and they really should be no discussion about it whatsoever. Sad to say, in this day and age, with the First Amendment being as weakened as it currently is, it's entirely possible that Oklahoma will get away with this.
To the detriment of all of us ... including Oklahoma.
OK was caught a few months ago forcing religious indoctrination in at least one school district when a father sued after his child was held hostage in a religious instruction class in a public school. Apparently this had been going on for decades. I read this a few weeks ago but don’t remember what district it was. They CLAIMED they didn’t know it was illegal. Hey sure! Christian’s-- always liars, manipulators, abusers and thieves!
That story would be worth a blog post here as well, especially considering the egregious nature of the incident. It's the kind of thing that I'd love to see the Freedom From Religion Foundation or American Atheists brought in on ... 'cuz they eat that stuff for breakfast!
This is the new version of white flight. Conservatives can't stop 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 kids from going their schools by simply moving to suburbia any more, so they do it by setting up private schools and having the state pay for it under the "voucher" name.
They've been trying this via voucher schools since the '90s...but the notion took a qualitatively different turn in the 2010s.
Before that, it was "your grandfather's racism", maybe with a touch of opposition to sex ed thrown in. But when SSM/gay rights came to the fore, that gave fundie parents a big cultural reason to want separate schools. Simultaneously, our newly conservative SCOTUS started saying it was okay for religious service providers to discriminate against customers using religion as an excuse. And at the same time, you had this cultural right-wing shift to portray a radically alternate US history where slavery was good for black people and sexism is good for women. These three things have all combined to make the current US voucher concept far, far more toxic than traditional public-private agreements in the commonwealth system or even the voucher system as it was originally developed in the US.
Which is a long-winded way of saying: it is a thing because conservative parents not wanting their kids going to schools with "others" is a thing.
Because people who are already wealthy are making even more money off them. When has the American government ever stepped in to put a stop to such? Unless there is actual, blatant criminality involved, and unless that criminality gets publicized in the news, Father, er, I mean Uncle Sam is just fine with it.
NZ is way ahead of you here. We've had these damn things for years now. They're called "integrated" schools. Although to be fair they do have to teach the national curriculum, and they are supposed to have a "special character" which means they can basically teach religion. I'm pretty sure that if they take government money they can't be teaching stuff like "creation science".
They are called private religious school here but the principle is the same. My nephew went in catholic* one for one year and he didn't have to follow the religious curriculum.
* The joke is his Muslim grandmother paid the tuition.
In Québec we strill have some religious Catholic schools, they're excellent institutions though and private with government money, of course. There are Muslim parents who send their kids there.
She's the type of person who can do only one of those three things at a time. Trying to do two of them at the same time would cause an extinction level this 🤯.
The FFRF post about this includes the info that the Notre Dame Law Clinic is spearheading the effort to establish schools like this in other states--which would require overturning state laws. They are calling it their Religious Liberty Initiative. Am I misremembering, but wasn't Amy Handmaid Barrett affiliated with Notre Dame? If so, and somebody (AU, FFRF, whoever) sues, watch such schools be approved at light-speed by the Supremes. Who, us? Corrupt?
Maybe it's a minor point, but rather than call it "Religious Liberty, " let's call it "Religious LICENSE" ... as in a license to do as you please without regulation.
Because let's be real: that is exactly what they want.
The merging of religion and state is the catalyst that tips the first domino in a chain of them that ends in a war over religion. Those against giving tax revenue to religious schools should pass a law allowing them to check a box on their tax returns forbidding the state from using the tax payer dollars from funding a religious based school. Similar to how The United Way allowed donors to block their dollars from going to Planned Parenthood.
I just wonder what the Oklahoma evangelicals are going to say about this. They hate Catholics and I'm sure there are several pastors who would like to be running a taxpayer funded school of indoctrination (ka-CHING!).
Either the entire LGBT compliment of the country needs to move to Florida and vote these assholes out of office, or every LGBT Floridian needs to leave the state immediately.
This is NOT the first use of tax dollars by a state for religious schools. TN recently approved of at least 40 Evangelical charter schools developed by Hillsdale College-- a religious college involved in charter creation in multiple states. I believe they are doing the same in Florida. What a shock?
Why is it that the organization that has in the past paid for all sorts of very expensive cathedrals suddenly gets to plead that they 'need' those taxpayer dollars to fund their school?
No. I'm not buying it. I want to see tax returns, I want to see priests in cheap robes, I want to see churches running bake sales to buy supplies. I'm sick of my government paying for things for wealthy organizations (not always religious ones, but some of the worst offenders are religious) that have more then enough money to pay for it themselves. This is even before we get to all the other issues involved with the RCC being allowed to run anything involving children; I don't care if it's over the internet I see no reason to allow these people access to minors. The RCC has plenty of money, if they want to run a @#%*ing school, they have the resources to do so without taxpayer assistance. And why is the same party that demanded more work for those on social assistance programs now giving away tax dollars to this welfare queen of a church anyway?!?!?!?
I guess we know the answer to that, don't we? I'm going to take my grumpy attitude about this elsewhere for a bit.
When I was a young teacher, we went on strike with a slogan read something like "Why does the Navy get a new frigate, while we have to hold a bake sale for sports equipment?" Didn't do much good. I think the government regarded as character building perhaps.
Republicans REJECT every social program that helps the American people including free lunches for destitute kids. But SOCIALISM for the wealthiest entity on the planet, the RCC, (and any other religious crap) coming from taxpayers pockets is ALWAYS acceptable. Meanwhile we cannot pay teachers a decent wage while those same poor teachers supply their students with supplies and lunches from their own pockets.
With multiple state-level investigations into the RCC's child rape addiction blowing up in the national news, Oklahoma decides 𝘯𝘰𝘸 is the moment to give that shitty old death cult another victim factory.
𝘞𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭.
It'll be counted as a public school when it comes to it's child rape scandal. "See, it happens in public schools too, but people only talk about the RCC because they hate Catholics/God."
But...but...it gives them comfort. What's wrong with that? (TM)
There was a time when the courts would have shot this down in a heartbeat, but that was before it was decided it was more important for Supreme Court Justices to grind their religious axes, than follow the Constitution. No religious school should get one cent of public money, for any reason!
I'm a retired public schoolteacher in Australia and they started this here in the mid 1960's. They did a 'close all catholic schools' stunt in one town, the local bishop telling all parents to take their kids to the nearest government school, which of course couldn't handle the additional numbers. They did this because there were fewer 'vocations', i.e. not as many young catholics were becoming brothers and nuns and the schools had to pay competitive salaries to secular staff.
Sadly, it worked and now government funding to private schools (no matter how wealthy) is accepted.
One conservative government argued that the schools will be able to keep the fees down, but they didn't. Instead they used the money to build massive halls, gymnasiums. swimming pools, etc.
When I see these buildings and materials compared to the government schools I still get very angry!
I urge my American friends to fight against this for all its worth!
I went to an Australian public (= US private) Anglican school. It was fine. The headmaster was a priest and we had the occasional religious assembly, but the school used real teachers, taught a rigorous curriculm, to the point where it was proud of how it's kids did on the HSCs (which are probably not called that any more...I'm probably dating myself...). The students came in all shapes and sizes and as far as I can tell the school took any student whose parents were willing to pay. We weren't Anglican, that's for sure. The facilities for disabled students were probably pretty primitive by today's standards, but this was decades ago and it was an honest attempt at accommodation.
Sadly, US religious voucher schools are not that. They are more typically attempts by fundie churches to *avoid* state curriculum and regulation than they are moderate church's attempt to *work with* the state.
OT - Gay Days at Disney World
𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐆𝐚𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐮𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐃𝐞𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3579d0ac0b89904778ea7f39ced64f7a494a2ab433f9bc78142faef96a08646.jpg
https://news.yahoo.com/disney-welcomes-gay-days-florida-020649063.html
I am not a fan of bingo but I would have loved to see that "Drag queen bingo was held."
About a mile from where I live there used to be a restaurant/bar/dance club called Georgie's Alibi. I don't remember if they did bingo, but they did have a weekly Drag Queen Trivia Night. It was extremely popular on the weekends, their patrons would take over about third of the parking lot of the businesses across the street.
The orignial: http://www.alibiwiltonmanors.com/
https://www.cltampa.com/food-drink/georgies-alibi-to-close-in-st-pete-after-15-years-12283436
I really want to know what part of "no public funds for religious schools" don't these people get. This shouldn't even be a discussion. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment makes this abundantly clear, and they really should be no discussion about it whatsoever. Sad to say, in this day and age, with the First Amendment being as weakened as it currently is, it's entirely possible that Oklahoma will get away with this.
To the detriment of all of us ... including Oklahoma.
OK was caught a few months ago forcing religious indoctrination in at least one school district when a father sued after his child was held hostage in a religious instruction class in a public school. Apparently this had been going on for decades. I read this a few weeks ago but don’t remember what district it was. They CLAIMED they didn’t know it was illegal. Hey sure! Christian’s-- always liars, manipulators, abusers and thieves!
That story would be worth a blog post here as well, especially considering the egregious nature of the incident. It's the kind of thing that I'd love to see the Freedom From Religion Foundation or American Atheists brought in on ... 'cuz they eat that stuff for breakfast!
He did on April 20.
This one?
𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐎𝐤𝐥𝐚𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭
https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/christian-missionaries-can-no-longer
𝐎𝐤𝐥𝐚𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐔𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐇𝐀 𝐋𝐚𝐰𝐬𝐮𝐢𝐭
https://americanhumanist.org/press-releases/oklahoma-school-district-ends-unconstitutional-religion-lessons-thanks-to-aha-lawsuit/
What does God need with a school anyway?
https://media.tenor.com/c9kXx5hfTQ0AAAAM/star-trek-kirk.gif
Gotta have somewhere to indoctrinate the starship crew, I guess.
The whippings will continue until morale improves.
https://youtu.be/c5Y25FT7DxE
Do a search engine with the words "charter schools don't work." Article after article on just how bad charter schools are for public education.
Why are they still a thing?
This is the new version of white flight. Conservatives can't stop 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 kids from going their schools by simply moving to suburbia any more, so they do it by setting up private schools and having the state pay for it under the "voucher" name.
They've been trying this via voucher schools since the '90s...but the notion took a qualitatively different turn in the 2010s.
Before that, it was "your grandfather's racism", maybe with a touch of opposition to sex ed thrown in. But when SSM/gay rights came to the fore, that gave fundie parents a big cultural reason to want separate schools. Simultaneously, our newly conservative SCOTUS started saying it was okay for religious service providers to discriminate against customers using religion as an excuse. And at the same time, you had this cultural right-wing shift to portray a radically alternate US history where slavery was good for black people and sexism is good for women. These three things have all combined to make the current US voucher concept far, far more toxic than traditional public-private agreements in the commonwealth system or even the voucher system as it was originally developed in the US.
Which is a long-winded way of saying: it is a thing because conservative parents not wanting their kids going to schools with "others" is a thing.
Yup. They went from just living in the suburbs to going full tilt boogie into gated communities to "keep out the riff raff." All on the public dime.
Because people who are already wealthy are making even more money off them. When has the American government ever stepped in to put a stop to such? Unless there is actual, blatant criminality involved, and unless that criminality gets publicized in the news, Father, er, I mean Uncle Sam is just fine with it.
NZ is way ahead of you here. We've had these damn things for years now. They're called "integrated" schools. Although to be fair they do have to teach the national curriculum, and they are supposed to have a "special character" which means they can basically teach religion. I'm pretty sure that if they take government money they can't be teaching stuff like "creation science".
They are called private religious school here but the principle is the same. My nephew went in catholic* one for one year and he didn't have to follow the religious curriculum.
* The joke is his Muslim grandmother paid the tuition.
In Québec we strill have some religious Catholic schools, they're excellent institutions though and private with government money, of course. There are Muslim parents who send their kids there.
His mother is an ex muslim theist. My nephew was an atheist before and still an atheist after 🙂
all you have to do is quote them verbatim
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1665719036322119682
So she claims not to have said the things she is recorded on video as saying?
pretty much
It's the Schrodinger's effect. It didn't happen and it happened, all at the same time! Isn't science great?
We heard her the FIRST time. 😝
The willful blindness and plain refusal to learn is astounding.
Surprised she's lived this long. That kind of ignorance can be deadly.
"...I don't want to know."
That's all we need to know about her.
Walk, talk, and chew gum.
She's the type of person who can do only one of those three things at a time. Trying to do two of them at the same time would cause an extinction level this 🤯.
That's all we to know about the right-wing, you mean.
The FFRF post about this includes the info that the Notre Dame Law Clinic is spearheading the effort to establish schools like this in other states--which would require overturning state laws. They are calling it their Religious Liberty Initiative. Am I misremembering, but wasn't Amy Handmaid Barrett affiliated with Notre Dame? If so, and somebody (AU, FFRF, whoever) sues, watch such schools be approved at light-speed by the Supremes. Who, us? Corrupt?
Maybe it's a minor point, but rather than call it "Religious Liberty, " let's call it "Religious LICENSE" ... as in a license to do as you please without regulation.
Because let's be real: that is exactly what they want.
I truly fear it is going to take a revolution/civil war to right this country or resolve the divide that has developed.
That's what fear as well.
The merging of religion and state is the catalyst that tips the first domino in a chain of them that ends in a war over religion. Those against giving tax revenue to religious schools should pass a law allowing them to check a box on their tax returns forbidding the state from using the tax payer dollars from funding a religious based school. Similar to how The United Way allowed donors to block their dollars from going to Planned Parenthood.
I just wonder what the Oklahoma evangelicals are going to say about this. They hate Catholics and I'm sure there are several pastors who would like to be running a taxpayer funded school of indoctrination (ka-CHING!).
Oklahoma is already ranked 48th Overall in Education.
This maneuver ought to push them into the next-to-last spot or even dead last.
OT - Sadism is the point
𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚 ‘𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝’ 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐥𝐚𝐰 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞
𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 80% 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘯𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴.
https://www.newstalkflorida.com/featured/pride-month-transgender-adults-in-florida-blindsided-that-new-law-also-limits-their-access-to-health-care/
https://www.cagle.com/dave-whamond/2023/06/back-to-florida
Either the entire LGBT compliment of the country needs to move to Florida and vote these assholes out of office, or every LGBT Floridian needs to leave the state immediately.
This is NOT the first use of tax dollars by a state for religious schools. TN recently approved of at least 40 Evangelical charter schools developed by Hillsdale College-- a religious college involved in charter creation in multiple states. I believe they are doing the same in Florida. What a shock?